SWORDMASTER Moribund Transgoria Vinyl LP (1999)

Before Deathstars were making goth kids swoon in eyeliner and PVC, the members were here, in Swordmaster, doing something considerably more violent. Moribund Transgoria is the 1999 full-length that sits at the intersection of Swedish black metal atmosphere and the melodic death metal precision that At The Gates basically wrote the rulebook for.

Sweden in the late nineties was producing records that still sound like they were recorded in a frozen church surrounded by wolves, and this is no exception. Swordmaster occupied a specific, underappreciated lane of Scandinavian extreme metal, all tremolo-picked aggression and icy melodic runs, with just enough death metal weight to keep it from floating away into the void. Limited to 1000 copies, this is number 991, which means it made it to a record store in Frankston, Australia, which is honestly its own kind of metal journey.

Format: Vinyl LP. Limited edition pressing, number 991 of 1000. Country of origin: Sweden.

Fans of: Dissection, At The Gates, Ancient, Ophthalamia, Setherial.